Before there was ever a television series, nestled in the winter corner of my bedroom, book resting on my knees perched to my chest, I looked like every character in the Little House on the Prairie book. I lived in each word. I knew the steps to the house. The barn. I was the girl nestled to a loving Pa. I was the strong and worried Ma. Laura, running, always running. Mary studying. I knew each character in and out. The mean girl at the mercantile. The neighbors a horse ride away. There was no need to mark the page. I read it through. And read it again.
The Washington Elementary School library made it possible for me to read the series a week at a time. The many years captured in these books lasted one winter of mine on Van Dyke Road. My little toes dug deeper into the carpeting as I traveled through each page. Because it wasn’t just my mind wandering. I knew I was there. That, I suppose, is the moment I learned the power, the magic of reading.
Yesterday we visited the three historic structures, including the Surveyor’s House, the Ingalls’ home that Pa built, and the First School of De Smet where Laura and Carrie were students. Maybe it was because of the snow, but I don’t think so…I felt it in my toes — they curled like I was seven again, as I ran to her statue. If you have a moment today, read — to a child in your house, at your library, or the one whose toes still curl beneath you.
One day in the late 1930’s a boy came up to his librarian and she suggested the he read about King Arthur. The boy replied, “Aw, I don’t want to read about kings. I want to read about human beings.” The librarian, Miss Beverly Bunn, knew what the boy meant. As a child she had felt the same way – she was sick of reading “wealthy English children who had nannies and pony carts or poor children whose problems were solved by a long-lost relative turning up in the last chapter. Beverly wanted to read stories about the sort of children she knew.”
This was the beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary. I did not google this information. I researched her in our University Library. I will sound old, perhaps, but consider me lucky. I was born before google. I was born when you had to go across campus, in the winter, (oh dear, this is almost sounding like one of those I walked a mile to school every day stories, but stay with me), look for your book titles in the card catalog, in other books. Find the aisle. Run your fingers across the shelves. Grab your book with delight, grateful that it wasn’t already checked out. Do this over and over. Then go to a silent table and read. Yes, read. You had to read complete books, not just a blurb spit out by a computer. Sometimes you would read an entire book, and realize it just led you to another book. But what a glorious gift. The smell of the leather, and slight must of the pages. The silence all around. You could feel the power of the words.
And so I researched Beverly Cleary. The assignment was to write about an author who had a great influence on you as a child. And she did. Every Wednesday, at Washington Elementary, the year after I had finished the Cowboy Sam series, and before I started the Little House on the Prairie books, I read Beverly Cleary. They lived on Klickitat Street, Henry Huggins, Beezus,Ramona (the pest), Henry’s dog Ribsy, the neighbor Scooter. You could say they lived in a world where nothing was special, but in that, I thought everything was special. The Huggins home was as real as the Norton home to me. As real as my VanDyke Road. It was a neighborhood I visited every week.
Perhaps the best gift that an author can give you is a glimpse of yourself. When you see a reflection of yourself, you see possibility. You see hope. And you begin to see yourself, just a little bit more.
On my returned assignment, the professor wrote, “Perhaps you should think of doing some professional writing yourself!” An exclamation point. For me! I had been punctuated.
No one should be denied a chance to live on Klickitat Street, or VanDyke Road. So I write.
